COMMUNITY NEWS
ICC highlights South India in eighth annual banquet
RITU JHA
A snapshot from the event
With the theme of ‘South India and Spirit of Seva
Celebrating Service’, the India Community Center
celebrated its eighth annual banquet in Milpitas,
California, September 24.
The evening, featuring the culture and cuisine
from Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil
Nadu, saw 450 guests packing the ICC’s Malavalli
Hall. The tables were decorated with banana leaves
and flowers, giving them a South Indian ambience.
“Everything was excellent,” said Sharad Dadbha-
wala, director, finance, ICC. “It was a good turnout; we
sold out the tickets before the banquet.”
He said the banquet raised funds “slightly better
than our expectation”.
Tanuja Bahal, executive director, ICC, put the figure at about $500,000, which is nearly double than
the past year’s $290,000.
“This year we tried to position ourselves and work
correctly,” said Dadbhawala. “We tried to reach out
to the community in a right way and made them
aware as what we are doing; the community is also
community is reaching out to us. So, it works both
ways.”
The ICC was established in February 2003 by the
Godhwani brothers, Anil and Gautam, first generation
Indian Americans and successful entrepreneurs. Soon,
other successful Indian-American entrepreneurs and pro-
fessionals joined them.
This year, the ICC announced its inaugural Seva Awards
to support nonprofit organizations. The awards, presented
by Raju Reddy of the ICC, were divided into four cate-
gories: Youth, Innovation, Local Community and Scale to
create a powerful community role models. Nonprofits
awarded this year are Maitri for supporting Local
Community, Pratham under Scale, MySahana under
Innovation and The Khan Academy under the Youth cate-
gory.
ARTHUR J PAIS
Dr Prabhudev Konana, recently appointed chairman, Department of Information Risk and Operations
Management at the University of Texas-Austin, has spent over two decades in the
United States. He is also a Distinguished
Teaching Professor and assistant director,
Center for Research in Electronic
Commerce, at the university. He received
his MBA and PhD from the University of
Arizona, Tucson, and has an undergraduate
degree in chemical engineering from the
Regional Engineering College, Karnataka.
His research interests are in business value
of information tehnology, virtual communities, outsourcing and offshoring. His earlier work focused on the design of electronic brokerages with primary focus in financial trading. He is interested in understanding of the impact of IT on developing
countries. He is passionate about discussing the social, political and cultural
issues in India and has written on the subject for Texas and Indian newspapers. He is
also a co-founder of Pragathi, a remedial
action program for school children, which
involves Indian entrepreneurs in Texas.
It is easy to give up on students who initially are not getting what is taught in the class,
but the pleasure of teaching is when they
learn. Some students come to a class with a
rich experience; they usually from an economically well-off community, and they
have good facilities at home, but many are
from rural Texas. I want to make sure that
everyone has the same access to learning in
my class.
Many students come with prior beliefs
and biases. The challenge is how to detach
students from biases to make decisions logically. They then are open- minded. I discuss business, the role of the government,
the abuse of power and the wrong use of
government power, and the ethics of business in my class. I often discuss India.
It is most important to me to teach the
class the ability to think without emotions
or biases.
Teaching cannot and should not be about
penalizing students for mistakes, but it
should be about rewarding the learning. At
the same time, it is not about pleasing the
students as if they are customers, which
they are not, but making sure they have
learned the material and have developed
the skills to be a life-long learner without
active supervision. From my part, I need to
be open to hear student views and encourage them to express their views. When I
was growing up in India if a student asked
the question the immediate reaction of
some teachers would be ‘go read the text
Dr Prabhudev Konana
Konana spoke to India Abroad:
Amar G Bose, who taught electrical
engineering at MIT for decades, once told
me that apart from engineering, he also
imparted life lesson to students.
I have known for a long time that it is
not just enough to teach the basics of a
complicated subject. I have to inspire the
students and kindle the passion in them.
The passion is often reflected by own passion, commitment, credibility, articulation, and empathy. It is about challenging
them to be inquisitive, to question the
status quo, and to know the unknown. It
is about the environment I create for
learning. The inspiration may come from
projects, real-world complex cases, and
challenging assignments where you make
it known to students that they will ‘curse’
me but will thank me at the end! Passion
comes from emphasizing detachment of
learning from grades. If grades control
the learning, then one is not passionate. I
have to inspire even those who may have
little interest in the subject matter and
make them see the big picture. What they
can learn is not limited by what I teach
them or by my experience, but by students’ own imagination and motivation.
